But we also know what’s right about it – it’s the biggest single market in the world.

Now, some people say: “take what we’ve got and put up with it”.

Others say: “just walk away from the whole thing”.

I say: no. This is Britain. We don’t duck fights. We get stuck in. We fix problems.

That’s how we kept our border checkpoints when others decided to take theirs down.

It’s how we kept the pound when others went head first into the Euro.

Because we do things our way.

We get rebates. We get out of bailouts.

But do you know what? It’s not just what we get out of, it’s what we get Europe into.

Who do you think got Europe to open trade talks with America, which would be the biggest trade deal in our history?

Who do you think got Europe to agree to sanctions on Iran, which brought that country to the negotiating table?

Us. Britain. We did.

Believe me, I have no romantic attachment to the European Union and its institutions.

I’m only interested in two things: Britain’s prosperity and Britain’s influence.

That’s why I’m going to fight hard in this renegotiation – so we can get a better deal and the best of both worlds.

Let me give you one example.

When we joined the European Union we were told that it was about going into a common market, rather than the goal that some had for “ever closer union”.

Let me put this very clearly: Britain is not interested in “ever closer union” – and I will put that right.

ECONOMIC SECURITY

A Greater Britain needs a dynamic economy.

Today, it’s a beacon in an uncertain world…

…we’ve got more foreign investment flooding into our country than anywhere else in Europe – anywhere in the world except for America and China.

But if anyone thinks the battle on the economy is won, they need to think again. The battle has only just begun.

We still need to find savings and produce more; still need to become more competitive; still need to make the most of our entire country – and build the Northern Powerhouse.

And all at a time when our opponents have given up any sensible, reasonable, rational arguments on the economy.

We live in a country where the main opposition party – let’s not forget, the alternative government – believes in nationalising industries without compensation, jacking up taxes to 60 per cent of people’s income, and printing money.

There’s an academic called Richard Murphy. He’s the Labour Party’s new economics guru, and the man behind their plan to print more money.

He gave an interview a few weeks ago. He was very frank. He admitted that Labour’s plan would cause a “sterling crisis”, but to be fair…

…he did add, and I quote, that it “would pass very quickly”.

Well, that’s alright then.

His book is actually called “The Joy of Tax”. I’ve read it. It’s got 64 positions – and they’re all wrong.

This is actually serious.

I tell you: our party’s success in growing our economy and winning the economic arguments has never been more vital.

Nothing less than the security of every single family in our country depends on it.

And as we do that, I know that we will have on our side not just the British people, not just British business…

…but our Iron Chancellor, George Osborne.

You know what makes me most angry about Labour?

It’s not just that their arguments are wrong; it’s the self-righteous way they make them.

The deficit-deniers, who go around saying we’re hurting the poor.

Hang on a second.

Who gets hurt when governments lose control of spending and interest rates go through the roof?

Who gets hurt when you waste money on debt interest and have to cut the NHS?

Who gets hurt when taxes go up and businesses start firing rather than hiring?

No – not the rich…

…it’s poor people, working people.

Yes, the very people Labour claim to be for.

Well let’s just remember: Labour ideas don’t help the poor, they hurt the poor.

That’s right, Labour: you’re not for working people, but hurting people.

If you want a lecture about poverty, ask Labour.

If you want something done about it, come to us, the Conservatives.

There’s another argument we need to win.

There are some people who understand the deficit needs to come down, but don’t get why we need a surplus.

I’ll tell you why.

I don’t stand here like a former Prime Minister once did and say I have abolished boom and bust.

We can’t just be thinking about today, we should be thinking about the rainy days that could come – just like a family does.

They put something aside, take out the insurance plan, pay off some of the mortgage when they have something spare.

That’s what we should do as a country – making sure we are ready to cope with future crises.

There’s a word for those who say live for today, forget about tomorrow: it’s selfish.

So let the message go out: if you work hard, want to get on, want more money at the end of the month…

…the party for you is right here in this hall.

But being out of work is only one of the causes we must tackle.

Children in care are today almost guaranteed to live in poverty.

84 per cent leave school without five good GCSEs.

70 per cent of prostitutes were once in care.

And tragically, care leavers are four times more likely to commit suicide than anyone else.

These children are in our care; we, the state, are their parents – and what are we setting them up for…

…the dole, the streets, an early grave?

I tell you: this shames our country and we will put it right.

Just as we said to failing schools, “do a better job with our children or we will send new leaders in”, so we will say to poorly performing social services, “improve or be taken over”.

Just as we got the best graduates teaching at our most difficult schools, let’s get our brightest and best to the frontline of social work.

But we must also stop children needing to be in care at all.

When we came to office, the adoption rate in our country was frankly a scandal.

It has gone up. Our Adoption Bill will help it increase still further.

But there’s so much more to do.

So let us in this hall say to all those children desperate for a family, and all those families yearning for a child:

We, the Conservatives, we are the ones who will bring you together.

There’s another service run by the state that all too often fails and entrenches poverty.

Prison.

Now I believe if you’ve committed a crime, punishment must follow.

And when it’s serious enough, that punishment must mean prison.

Let’s not forget, since we came to office, crime is down by a quarter.

But the system is still not working.

Half of criminals offend within a year of being released.

Nearly half go into prison with no qualifications; many come out with none either.

And all the problems that may have led them to that life – drug addiction, mental health problems, childhood abuse – remain unchanged.

We have got to get away from the sterile lock-em-up or let-em-out debate, and get smart about this.

When prisoners are in jail, we have their full attention for months at a time – so let’s treat their problems, educate them, put them to work.

When we restrict someone’s freedom outside prison, we can make sure they’re working and paying taxes, rather than spending £30,000 a year keeping them in a cell – so where it makes sense, let’s use electronic tags to help keep us safe and help people go clean.

And when our prisons are relics from the time of Dickens – it’s time to sell them off and build new ones that actually work.

This is going to be a big area of social reform in the next five years. And I have just the man for the job.

The man who takes on every vested interest and gives everyone a chance…

…the man who began the great transformation of our education system and is now going to do the same for prisons…

…yes, the great Conservative reformer, Michael Gove.

OPPORTUNITY

If we tackle the causes of poverty, we can make our country greater.

But there’s another big social problem we need to fix.

In politicians’ speak: a “lack of social mobility”.

In normal language: people unable to rise from the bottom to the top, or even from the middle to the top, because of their background.

Listen to this: Britain has the lowest social mobility in the developed world.

Here, the salary you earn is more linked to what your father got paid than in any other major country.

I’m sorry, for us Conservatives, the party of aspiration, we cannot accept that.

We know that education is the springboard to opportunity.

Our reforms are already working.

More children studying maths and science. More learning coding and engineering. More doing the extra-curricular activities that teach confidence and build character.

Recently, I was at a school in Runcorn. Last year, 53 of their children went off to university. 52 of them were the first ever in their family to do so.

That is why I’m so passionate about academies and free schools:

Head teachers are growing in confidence as they throw off the shackles of local council control…

…raising the aspirations of children, parents, communities.

This movement is sweeping across our country.

So my next ambition is this.

500 new Free Schools.

Every school an academy…

…and yes – Local Authorities running schools a thing of the past.

But let’s be honest.

For too many people, even a good education isn’t enough.

There are other barriers that stand in their way.

Picture this.

You’ve graduated with a good degree.

You send out your CV far and wide.

But you get rejection after rejection.

What’s wrong? It’s not the qualifications or the previous experience.

It’s just two words at the top: first name, surname.

Do you know that in our country today: even if they have exactly the same qualifications, people with white-sounding names are nearly twice as likely to get call backs for jobs than people with ethnic-sounding names?

This is a true story.

One young black girl had to change her name to Elizabeth before she got any calls to interviews.

That, in 21st century Britain, is disgraceful.

We can talk all we want about opportunity, but it’s meaningless unless people are really judged equally.

Think about it like this.

Opportunity doesn’t mean much to a British Muslim if he walks down the street and is abused for his faith.

Opportunity doesn’t mean much to a black person constantly stopped and searched by the police because of the colour of their skin.

Opportunity doesn’t mean much to a gay person rejected for a job because of the person they love.

It doesn’t mean much to a disabled person prevented from doing what they’re good at because of who they are.

I’m a dad of two daughters – opportunity won’t mean anything to them if they grow up in a country where they get paid less because of their gender rather than how good they are at their work.

The point is this: you can’t have true opportunity without real equality.

And I want our party to get this right.

Yes us, the party of the fair chance; the party of the equal shot…

…the party that doesn’t care where you come from, but only where you’re going…

…us, the Conservatives, I want us to end discrimination and finish the fight for real equality in our country today.

EXTREMISM

Tackling the causes of poverty. Fighting for real opportunity.

And there’s one more big social reform in our mission to rebuild Britain as an even greater country.

We need to confront – and I mean really confront – extremism.

When I read what some young people born and brought up in this country are doing, it makes me feel sick to my stomach.

Girls not much older than my eldest daughter, swapping loving family homes and straight-A futures for a life of servitude under ISIL, in a land of violence and oppression.

Boys who could do anything they wanted in Britain – who have benefitted from all this country stands for – instead ending up in the desert wielding a knife.

This ideology, this diseased view of the world, has become an epidemic – infecting minds from the mosques of Mogadishu to the bedrooms of Birmingham.

And here’s what we need to do.

One: tear up the narrative that says Muslims are persecuted and the West deserves what it gets.

Never mind that it’s Britain and America behind the biggest effort to help the victims of Syria.

Who is ISIL murdering more than anyone else? Muslims.

No-one should get away with this politics of grievance anymore.

Two: take on extremism in all its forms, the violent and non-violent.

People don’t become terrorists from a standing start.

It begins with preachers telling them that Christians and Muslims can’t live together.

It moves to people in their community saying the security services were responsible for 7/7.

It progresses to a website telling them how to wage jihad, fight in Syria, and defeat the West.

And before you know it, a young British boy, barely 17, is strapping bombs to his body and blowing himself up in Iraq.

We have to stop it at the start – stop this seed of hatred even being planted in people’s minds, let alone allowing it to grow.

Three: we need to tackle segregation.

There are parts of Britain today where you can get by without ever speaking English or meeting anyone from another culture.

Zoom in and you’ll see some institutions that actually help incubate these divisions.

Did you know, in our country, there are some children who spend several hours each day at a Madrassa?

Let me be clear: there is nothing wrong with children learning about their faith, whether it’s at Madrassas, Sunday Schools or Jewish Yeshivas.

But in some Madrassas we’ve got children being taught that they shouldn’t mix with people of other religions; being beaten; swallowing conspiracy theories about Jewish people.

These children should be having their minds opened, their horizons broadened…

…not having their heads filled with poison and their hearts filled with hate.

So I can announce this today:

If an institution is teaching children intensively, then whatever its religion, we will, like any other school, make it register so it can be inspected.

And be in no doubt: if you are teaching intolerance, we will shut you down.

This goes to a wider truth.

For too long, we’ve been so frightened of causing offence that we haven’t looked hard enough at what is going on in our communities.

This is passive tolerance. And I’ll tell you where it leads:

To children, British children, going to Pakistan in the summer holidays, before they’ve even started their GCSEs, and forced to marry a man they’ve never met…

…children, British children, having their genitals mutilated, not just in a clinic in Lagos but the backstreets in Britain.

This passive tolerance has turned us into a less integrated country; it’s put our children in danger. It is unforgiveable.

So let me say it right here: no more passive tolerance in Britain.

We’ve passed the laws – now I want them enforced.

People who organise forced marriages – I want them prosecuted.

Parents who take their children for FGM – I want them arrested.

And as we do that, we shouldn’t just be saying what’s wrong with these practices; we should be saying what’s right with Britain.

Freedom. Democracy. Equality. These are precious.

People fought for them – many died for them…

…in the trenches, a century ago; on the beaches, 30 years later…

…in the Suffragettes; in Gay Pride.

Half the world is crying out for these freedoms – they see what we’ve achieved with them.

Free speech – and the best literature in the world.

Freedom of religion – and many faiths living side by side, peacefully.

Free thinking – and the endless advances in medicine and technology that has brought.

A free economy – and a standard of living our grandparents could only have dreamed of.

I want my children – I want all our children – to know they’re part of something big – the proudest multi-racial democracy on earth.

That’s why we’re making sure they learn British history at school.

That’s why we started National Citizen Service to bring different people together.

I want them to grow up proud of our country.

That’s right: less Britain-bashing, more national pride – our way, the Conservative way, the only way to greater days.

CONSERVATIVES

So big battles. Big arguments. A Greater Britain.

Keeping our head as Labour lose theirs.

So I have a message for those who voted for us and those who never have:

If you believe in strong defence, and helping the poorest, most desperate people in the world.

If you want an NHS that’s there for everybody, and schools that stretch our children…

…and you understand none of that is possible without a strong economy.

If you believe we can become the enterprise capital of the world and beat poverty.

If you believe that the fight against extremism is the fight for our existence; and you want this to be the generation that ends discrimination.

If you want these things, the party you need is the party right here.

And it’s never too late.

Bernard Harris from Leicester wrote to me before polling day and said this.

“Aged 82, this is possibly my last election.

“In my life I have foolishly voted Labour, believing it served the working class.

“How wrong I was. Labour is against all I aspire to.

“I am 100 per cent for a United Kingdom, a sound economy, free enterprise, a trading Europe and a decent standard of living.

“Only a Conservative Government will achieve this.”

Bernard, you found the right party – and I want many more to follow in your footsteps.

CONCLUSION

So I believe that we can make this era – these 2010s – a defining decade for our country…

…the turnaround decade…

…one which people will look back on and say: “that’s the time when the tide turned…

…when people no longer felt the current going against them, but working with them.”

We can be that Greater Britain.

Because we know this: nothing is written.

We’ve proved it in schools across our country…

…that the poorest children don’t have to get the worst results – they can get the best.

Over the next five years we will show that the deep problems in our society – they are not inevitable.

That a childhood in care doesn’t have to mean a life of struggle.

That a stint in prison doesn’t mean you’ll get out and do the same thing all over again.

That being black, or Asian, or female, or gay doesn’t mean you’ll be treated differently.

Nothing is written.

And if we’re to be the global success story of the 21st century, we need to write millions of individual success stories.

A Greater Britain – made of greater expectations…

…where renters become homeowners…

…employees become employers…

…a small island becomes an even bigger economy…

…and where extremism is defeated once and for all.

A Greater Britain…

…no more, its people dragged down or held back…

…no more, some children with their noses pressed to the window as they watch the world moving ahead without them.